KYIV (Reuters) – More than 51,000 households were left without gas and 1,500 apartment buildings had no winter heat in Moldova’s pro-Russian separatist enclave, authorities said on Monday, after Ukraine refused to extend a transit agreement with Russia last week.
Transdniestria, a mainly Russian-speaking separatist region along the Ukrainian border, had received Russian gas via Ukraine for decades, using it to generate electricity also sold to the rest of Moldova, providing 80% of the country’s power.
But that gas was cut off along with flows to central and eastern Europe that stopped on New Year’s Day, after Kyiv refused to extend a transit deal that had persisted through nearly three years of all-out war between Russia and Ukraine.
The Transdniestrian government said on Telegram that a total of 122 settlements had been cut from gas supplies as of Monday morning and only small amounts were being supplied to some apartments for cooking. Authorities ordered schools not to reopen after the winter holidays, with at least 131 schools and 147 kindergartens left without heat.
“There is not a single person in Transdniestria who is guilty of this situation – it’s all an external factor,” the president in the region’s administration, Vadim Krasnoselsky, said on a televised statement.
Gas piped over Ukraine has long been the main way Russia supported the separatist region, which broke free of control of Moldova’s central government in a brief war in 1992 and still hosts 1,500 Russian soldiers.
Moldova, which has a pro-Western government that seeks membership in the EU and NATO, accuses Moscow of trying to undermine its independence, including by manipulating the separatists, which Russia denies.
Since the Russian gas was halted with the new year, Moldova has met its power needs by importing about 60% of its energy requirement from neighbouring Romania. It says it has offered to assist the separatists with gas supplies.
Krasnoselsky called reports of such an aid offer “lies” and said Moldova’s goal was the “strangulation” of the enclave.
“There have been no offers of assistance from Moldova or other states,” he said. He has urged residents to use firewood.
The Moldovan government blamed the energy crisis on Russian’s gas export giant Gazprom, which it said refused to supply contracted gas to Moldova via an alternative route.
Gazprom said it would suspend exports to Moldova on Jan. 1 because of unpaid Moldovan debts Moscow says total $709 million. Moldova disputes that and puts the figure at $8.6 million.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Peter Graff)
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